


His Light

by lusteralliance (orphan_account)



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Parent-Child Relationship, and also a kissy, and mb some cookies and milk, dimitri u need a hug, kind of, perhaps a bedtime story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-23 21:03:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20223214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/lusteralliance
Summary: Byleth finds Dimitri in the ruins of the monastery, no longer the sweet boy he was five years ago.





	His Light

His icy blue eye narrowed in recognition, in hostility. His other was asleep behind a black patch, his once sleek, neatly-trimmed blonde hair a tangled mess. There was blood all over his armor, and Byleth did not need to think to know that none of it was his.

Byleth stared at him from under the skylight, and he stared back from where he sat, slumped in the shadows, the mossy stone his bed and throne. There was fear in his eye, and hatred. He gripped the handle of his lance tighter. Byleth took a step forward.

His kind, eager smile was lost to time, as were the soft, smooth curves of his youthful face. Everything was harsh now, jagged like broken shale.

Byleth stopped before him, then knelt down. He glared, leered. Dark blood splattered across his cheek, under his sleeping eye. 

Byleth blinked slowly.

“Dimitri….”

He bared his teeth like a provoked beast; an angered lion, a frightened stray cat, left in the dust to fend for himself. Then, he lowered his head, his blood-slicked blonde hair shifting to cover his existing eye.

“I should’ve known...that one day, you would be haunting me as well.”

Byleth raised a hand and gently touched Dimitri’s cheek. Dimitri winced and pulled away, turning his head so he was blind to the light, the truth.

Even so, those fingers against his jaw, and then that warm palm pressed to his face, and Byleth’s cheek against the dried blood that adorned his skin.

“I’m glad you’re safe.”

Dimitri snarled and tried to pull away, but Byleth’s arms wrapped gently around his neck; his professor, his protector, his savior. His light. It blinded him. He hated the light.

“Am I?” he rasped through gritted teeth, and his hand trembled as he clutched his lance. The dried blood flaked off against Byleth’s skin as he pulled away from Dimitri, still thumbing his other cheek.

His smile was rare and hard to notice, but it was everything. Dimitri remembered it, barely; Byleth smiled now, and he nodded softly where they sat in the shade of the monastery’s ruins.

“You are now. I am here.”

Dimitri wanted to strike him. He wanted to plunge his lance up to the hilt into his professor’s chest, hear his innards spilling onto the stone floor, hear his pained screams, his pleas. It would have hurt him less; the way Byleth cared felt like a stab wound, a barbed, poisoned dagger, sinking deeper and deeper into his heart with every gesture. His old teacher took his sleeve and gently rubbed away the blood on Dimitri’s face. 

“Why…?” Dimitri’s vision started to blur, and he squeezed his eye shut. His voice shook. “Why do you bother with me…?”

Byleth’s teal eyes softened, and he brushed his other hand against Dimitri’s cheek still crusted with blood.

“Because you are my student, Dimitri. My child. And I was told on my very first day in the monastery never to let you out of my sight.”

Byleth lowered Dimitri’s head and gently parted his hair with his nose, then kissed his forehead.

“I have already failed, and look at what I have caused.”

Dimitri had never depended on someone in many, many years. Many breaths were taken in solitude, let out in solitude. On clear nights, the moon rose over him and him only, and the rotting corpses of the Imperial soldiers he tore down in his madness.

Byleth was here. He was here, here for _him_. 

“Why did you come for me?” Dimitri spat, Byleth’s lips still between his eyes, just over the strap of his black patch. He stroked Dimitri’s hair, then lowered his head to touch his forehead against his student’s.

“I have come to take you away from here. It is too cold and damp...let us find somewhere warm, and there we will catch up.” He got to his feet, but Dimitri pulled him down again, staring desperately into his professor’s soft eyes.

“That was not my question….”

Byleth watched him for a moment, then smiled again, returning his hand to Dimitri’s cheek. It was now wet with tears, and he brushed them away with the side of his thumb.

“I want to help you, Dimitri. I want to keep you safe.”

Dimitri narrowed his eye, his lip trembling as he pressed his mouth tightly shut. He wanted to hate. He wanted to feel nothing again.

His lance clattered to the ground, and he squeezed his eye shut, tears streaking down his cheek as he let out a faint sob. Byleth murmured soft reassurance and hugged him gently, and Dimitri grabbed handfuls of his teacher’s cape and buried his face into the warm shoulder he had cried into so often in his youth.

“I’m here,” Byleth whispered, smiling gently into Dimitri’s hair as he held him close. His arms were the only thing that ever made Dimitri feel small. “I’m here.”

**Author's Note:**

> i'm heading to china! i know tumblr won't work there, but i'm not sure about ao3. if it does, see ya there! if not, this shall be my parting gift u-u


End file.
